Yet they keep making maps with huge open areas which are completely useless. Fjords middle is useless while it used to not be, Glacier advancing to the base - huge open area, Erlenberg huge open area etc.

So what you are saying is make maps with defined corridors which give cover from cross fire?

So what you are saying is make maps with defined corridors which give cover from cross fire?

No need for corridors, but having a flat open space is useless. Redshire is an example of an open map, where you don't need to cross insane flat open fields to get to the camping positions. Hell even malinovka has some height differences so a light tank can rush at the bottom of the hill etc.

People are more passive but they are not camping as in staying in positions in bushes and shooting. It's super hard to do spotting now and usually when people are camping your spots go up. People are mostly sitting behind buildings/hills/out of render range wondering what is tanks than camping.

After thinking a bit I voted no change. At first I thought OP might be onto something, but then it dawned on me that the change I feel is most prominent is that more teams ignore 50% of the map, which might be perceived as camping. It might be down to removal of maps that I get this feeling, but maps like Siegfried, Ensk, Karelia and Ruinberg seem to stand out. Redshire is a map where I perceive little camping and much less ignore of flanks compared to the ones mentioned.

I do not get the distinct feeling this is something that happens due to SPGs, to me it appears to be TDs that cause this, and those are the tanks that I fear when going to the open places.

After thinking a bit I voted no change. At first I thought OP might be onto something, but then it dawned on me that the change I feel is most prominent is that more teams ignore 50% of the map, which might be perceived as camping. It might be down to removal of maps that I get this feeling, but maps like Siegfried, Ensk, Karelia and Ruinberg seem to stand out. Redshire is a map where I perceive little camping and much less ignore of flanks compared to the ones mentioned.

I do not get the distinct feeling this is something that happens due to SPGs, to me it appears to be TDs that cause this, and those are the tanks that I fear when going to the open places.

Surely a perception of increased camping is still relevant? If you feel that players are being more static and not moving as much isn't that the same thing. Although other people are perceiving it as "camping". I have no idea why players seem to be camping more. I can just surmise it's down to map design, skill and vehicle changes by WG.

In terms of "camping" I'm including all passive play really. Not just sitting in a bush on an open map, but passive play where even if you've moved forward to a point in the map you adopt a position where you're reluctant to push (and actually that's the wrong thing to do at that time).

We all move between active and passive play at times, and part of the skill in the game is moving between the two. I just feel that passive play has increased recently.

It has increased for sure, but what did you expect with Wargaming adding huge open barren fields without any viable cover on all new HD maps to benefit TD's sniping at range. Basically you win half of a flank and then you are halted in your tracks because you need to cross an open field without any cover.

The worst offender in this is Erlenberg where after the hill with the windmill there is a big open expanse of nothing where the enemy team has very thick bush cover to snipe anyone approaching.

At first I was going to say 'no', cause especially at lower tiers my teammates tend to die in 1st minute and that couldn't be achieved through camping, but after giving this some thought...yes, it increased.

I guess 1.0 is a reason for it (new & improved camping positions, people not understanding maps, etc) but also influx of bad players and the fact that people don't learn. Nobody actually moves to take key positions on maps, unless you play high tiers in the evenings. Finally, armor meta got countered by TD meta, so there's usually a lot of TDs in each game, some of them made for camping (khe, khe, cheeswage line). All in all - aggressive plays are getting punished even more now.

Surely a perception of increased camping is still relevant? If you feel that players are being more static and not moving as much isn't that the same thing. Although other people are perceiving it as "camping". I have no idea why players seem to be camping more. I can just surmise it's down to map design, skill and vehicle changes by WG.

In terms of "camping" I'm including all passive play really. Not just sitting in a bush on an open map, but passive play where even if you've moved forward to a point in the map you adopt a position where you're reluctant to push (and actually that's the wrong thing to do at that time).

We all move between active and passive play at times, and part of the skill in the game is moving between the two. I just feel that passive play has increased recently.

Yep, the perception is still relevant, but causality is key imo.

Taking Siegfried as an example again, I tend to think of the open side as important and usually always go there if in an MT or LT, and sometimes even TD, alone if neccessary, because I think there is value in simply spotting if one or more enemies try to push that side. I do this even if I am the only tank to that side of the tank traps, irrespective of spawnside. Sometimes it does of course go horribly wrong for me, whereas I tend to write in chat something along the line of Team, please be aware next time you spawn on this map that there can appear enemy tanks on this open side of the map...

I understand why players are reluctant to go here, especially if their experience is that they are left alone, and I suspect that most might not find comfort in the fact that going there and dying early might mean that you delay the enemy just enough for the battle to turn from an auto-defeat to a possible win, and as such just go with the lemmings instead. It might not even be hidden TDs or SPGs that make them leave that side alone, it can be something as simple as hating to go alone, because it even happens in battles with very few TDs and no SPGs.

Maybe there's just more players that find comfort in numbers nowadays.

If we perceive a similar meta then causality is the next discussion point.

You're mentioning anecdotes from maps and they can be relevant, just as I used the anecdote of players on Tundra not realising that their team in the hill but they still camp.

Being reluctant to go to a location on a particular map might be appropriate and understandable.

What I'm observing is a phenomena across all maps, in all tanks and that's got to be something above individual map design for a particular map.

IMHO it's the style of play that is now attractive and all it does is create a downward spiral in terms of the meta that will be boosted by WG the next time they release their idiot proof tank.

WG need to pull back from throwing bushes onto maps like confetti, and develop more tanks that require less tunnel vision and some actual skill. Arty covers the noobtube base very well, we don't need TD's to push it off its pedestal.

I think the prevalence of maps that encourage camping has increased. I never noticed it on any of the other maps. Erlenberg is probably the worst offender, it already was a campmap before but at least you still had some options, it's a worse campmap now where you have nearly no options unless you're capable of brawling in the middle. Provence also comes to mind but that map just needs to go permanently.

Even Malinovka and Prokhorovka, usually the worst campmaps, had at least some options to try and advance lines. You might take a shot but you wouldn't necessarily run helplessly into a barrage. I did not feel like my only options were "sit still or die" until the new Erlenberg.

If you thought that was either clever or funny, I have some bad news for you.

Due to having greatest capacity for full situational view, arty should be insta banned after doing any team damage. You have fraking sight of entire map. You have to be either total moron, or troll to do ANY team damage. Banning both would have tremendous positive impact on gameplay.

If we perceive a similar meta then causality is the next discussion point.

You're mentioning anecdotes from maps and they can be relevant, just as I used the anecdote of players on Tundra not realising that their team in the hill but they still camp.

Being reluctant to go to a location on a particular map might be appropriate and understandable.

What I'm observing is a phenomena across all maps, in all tanks and that's got to be something above individual map design for a particular map.

IMHO it's the style of play that is now attractive and all it does is create a downward spiral in terms of the meta that will be boosted by WG the next time they release their idiot proof tank.

WG need to pull back from throwing bushes onto maps like confetti, and develop more tanks that require less tunnel vision and some actual skill. Arty covers the noobtube base very well, we don't need TD's to push it off its pedestal.

Are you giving individual idiot proof tanks this much "credit" for changing the style of play? I'm not entirely sure that what I (imagine) happening on some maps do in fact happen on all maps, I can't trust my own perception to that level, and some of the odd plays that teams do seem to stem from things like a certain number of players just having decided in advance where to go, irrespective of how the rest of the team actually deploy. Tundra is one map where I can't really identify a narrow trend, but more a cycle of trends that can include, but are not limited to;

- HTs going in a cluster to the western flank where they can shoot nowhere but north/south, unable to in any way impact what happens on the hill

- No tank going to the western flank, where a majority of tanks lemming to the hill and get flanked so they get enemies up the rear from behind while trying to fight the enemy on the opposite approach to the hill, especially on south spawn

- LT rusing to mid-map to spot over valley and thus the team halts and tries to snipe

- 2 tanks rushing the hill and get obliterated by an enemy that outnumber them, and then, as you mention, the rest of the team seems oblivious to the issue and get sniped from the hill by the enemy

But personally I do not perceive the styles as very campy on that map, it's more like if teams deploy "insensibly" compared to eachother then the better team gets the upper hand rather quickly. Similar things can happen on maps like Salient, where you get the cluster hanging back on 1-2 line, which is indeed campy, where the battles seem to be dictated by the ability to cooperate between the mid ridge tanks and the ones on the hill, for south spawn, and mid ridge and railroad crossing/north hill for north spawn. That's one of the maps where I feel there is definitely less aggressive play in general.

I see HTs going to non-obvious map postitions irrespective of tanks like a Defender being present or not, but things like this is hard to assess since I have no idea if the player in a certain battle tends to go to the same position on that map almost no matter what tank he plays, I bet there are some players that have a tendency to do that, where others try to go to the position that is most sensible for the tank they are currently in. I'm also inclined to believe that our respective anecdotes can differ substantially due to the number of possible combinations of the things mentioned above, where you can get a larger portion of teams that do X on the same map where I get a larger portion of teams that do Y.

Other maps, like Lakeville, seem to me to get less lemmingtrains that halt mid-valley, where it seems there is a temporary camp situation south of the lake for the south spawning team if someone spots well from the mid road, and that the team gets later into the city. Fisherman's Bay is definitely a bit more campy on my end, but Himmelsdorf is not, Live Oaks is usually not very campy at all, more often than not there is active play in the southern part from both sides, and Westfield is pretty active in the north. Take into account the inaccuracies of human memory here please, but that is at least how I perceive it.

So, maybe some maps are a bit more slow, some the same and some a little more active, but overall I do not get a feeling the entire game is/has gotten more campy in general.